“That’s where we expect them to come from,” Masterson said, pointing a finger and ignoring the question.
“How do you know?” Jacob asked.
Masterson looked Jacob in the eye, not used to being questioned. He forced a grin then held up the small handheld radio. “Two-Six made contact with a small group about an hour ago. They knocked down most of ’em, but remnants of the enemy patrol broke off and scattered. They’re pushing them this way.”
The radio squelched, causing Masterson to turn his back. He held the radio to his ear, a look of concentration on his face. He placed it next to his lips and pressed the button. “Roger, we’re in position. Out,” he said before turning back to Jacob. “Okay, get on the glass… won’t be long now.”
Masterson dropped to his belly and crawled up next to Jacob. The driver moved closer to the other men, kneeling just behind Jesse’s machine gun.
Jacob put his eye to the scope and focused on the burnt stump. He felt Masterson crawl closer. “How are you on the rifle?” Masterson asked him in a low voice.
“I can hit what I shoot at… most of the time,” Jacob whispered, not taking his eye from the scope.
“We’ll see.”
Five minutes passed before the first of them broke the cover of the trees. They were walking quickly, tightly packed together—not talking, not looking around. They focused to the front as they exited the forest and continued on the trail toward the hilltop road. Jacob counted seven of them, all carrying weapons of some sort and wearing a variety of clothing. He whispered the information to Masterson the way he’d been trained.
“Hold your fire; let them get closer,” Masterson said, loud enough so all could hear him. “Anderson here will drop the point man, and then you all take out the rest. Let none escape.”
Jacob raised the rifle into his shoulder and focused on the leader, a tall lanky man. He was wearing coveralls and carrying a wood-stocked rifle in his arms. It was the first time Jacob had seen one of them since Chicago. He could tell by its movement that he wasn’t human. It was a subtle difference, but once recognized, one a person couldn’t forget—the mechanical motions in the way it moved… the perfect posture… the way it walked without ever looking back to check on its comrades, knowing they would follow.
“Shit,” Masterson said. “Weapons tight, people; don’t fire till Private Anderson initiates contact.”
Jacob took his eye from the rifle, looking at Masterson. “Drill Sergeant?” he said.
Masterson pointed farther down, a second group of nine men emerged from the tree line, moving in the same direction as the first but in their own distinct element. “Get back on the rifle; fire when I give the word. We can’t let them pass. Two-Six is in the woods, moving this way. All we have to do is delay these bastards 'til they get here.”
Masterson lifted the radio back to his lips and whispered into it. “Two-Six, this is Four Actual.” He held it to his ear, waiting for a response that Jacob couldn’t hear. “Roger, Two-Six, we have ’em seven strong, lightly armed. I’m tracking a second group of nine to their east… Roger, waiting to engage. Four Actual out.”
Jacob felt his heart rate increase as he blinked his eyes, trying to focus on the man in coveralls. The strange man continued marching on the trail, moving directly in line with the prepared ambush. Jacob exhaled audibly and let his finger caress the trigger.
“Let them come… just a bit closer,” Masterson whispered into his ear. “They get close enough, you can see the black gel in their eyes… let them get on top of you… ya can smell them, that skunky, shit smell. Let them see you and they let out that scream, like a bitch hyena. That’s a scream you’ll hear in your nightmares.”
Jacob held his silence, not knowing how to respond to the drill sergeant’s commentary.
“But you already know that, don’t ya? Hell, you were at the castle,” Masterson said sarcastically. “You probably got it all figured out.”
As the man in coveralls came closer, Jacob kept the reticule over the man’s chest. He let it drift up and now clearly saw the man’s gnarled reptilian face; its forehead was heavily bridged, its neck scaled with gray flesh. He had closed to within two football fields—well within Jacob’s comfort zone. The blackened eyes were now visible in the scope. Jacob focused the cross hairs high on the man’s chest, tightened his grip, and whispered, “On target.”
“Take the shot.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
His rifle barked, deploying a 7.62-caliber bullet downrange at 2,800 feet per second, crossing the field in the fraction of a second. With his system full of adrenaline, Jacob didn’t feel the kick of the M14 rifle. He kept his eye to the scope and watched intently as the man in coveralls took his last step. The creature’s body shuddered then crumpled to the trail, a solid hit to the upper chest. A line of outbound tracers filled his view as Jesse let loose a long burst from his M240 Golf machine gun. Rounds from below zipped up at them, seeming to arc over their heads at the last second. Jacob instinctively flinched and ducked down, then felt Masterson’s hand on his shoulder.
“Keep scanning, boy. You got one in the open returning fire. You got him; he’s at your five o’clock, hundred and fifty meters.”
Jacob forced his fear to the back as he pressed his eye to the scope, panning away from the creature he’d already dropped. He found the new target, a man in flannel, walking forward with an AK47. Jacob had already shifted his rifle to the right, placing the cross-hair center mass. The thing showed no fear, firing
